


Down Among the Dead Men

by Thimblerig



Series: The Lion and the Serpent [41]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Anachronistic Poetry, Captivity, Dubious Confectionary, Gen, Injury Recovery, Period-Typical Poetry, Trauma, jailbreak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-03 17:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11537454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: 1. In which we meet the devil.2. In which the devil introduces himself.3. In which Aramis tells his beads.4. In which there is a lady.5. The devil teaches scripture.6. The rose-tree rebellion.7. Wherein Aramis discusses how he wished for the wings of a dove.8. In which the devil asks for understanding.9. In which the devil expresses regret.10. The devil speaks of times past.11. In which Athos considers his friend's feelings.





	1. In which we meet the devil.

**Author's Note:**

> Who am I kidding, I can't write things in one big hit. We post by the chapter like men.
> 
> CW: I'm going to try to avoid getting too graphic, but part of this story involves Aramis recovering from a traumatic injury in far from ideal conditions. It's going to include things like intermittent aphasia and persistent memory loss. And terrible company.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psalm 130

D’Artagnan perched awkwardly, high in the air, a tree branch wedged awkwardly under his haunches and rain-damp fir needles tickling his nose. There was a gout of red-yellow sunshine washing over him but, this high in the Savoy mountains, this late in autumn, he was cold.

He squinted, craning his neck like a curious sheep to see over the great stone wall, shifted his rear one more time and said, “I can see the chateau’s courtyard.” He listed the occupants that he could see, a scattering of liveried soldiers, stablemen, house-servants, and drawers of well-water, placing them in relation to the doors and windows.

“Very good,” Aramis said from his perch beneath, where he reclined elegantly, his eyes shut and his limbs a picture of languor. “You’re getting better at the spy game.”

“That isn’t the compliment that you seem to think it is.”

Aramis tsked quietly, then, “Among the flagstones, near the main door in the far wall, do you see anything?”

“A circular grate. What’s it for, water run-off?”

Silence. “Among other things.”

The branches below rustled irritably as Porthos hauled his weight a foot higher. “You find what you were looking for?”

“Perhaps,” Aramis said calmly, eyes still shut. “D’Artagnan, is anyone near the grate?”

“N-no… yes - a soldier just opened it and tossed something in.”

“Just before evening bell,” Aramis breathed. “Same as always. Well. We don’t always get what we want.”

“It’s rubbish disposal?”

“A place to put things to be forgotten, in any case.”

“Aramis, what’s down there,” Athos asked quietly from below.

“I had a cracked head,” said Aramis, smiling gently. “You can't expect me to remember much of anything.”

Athos looked up and shared a worried glance with Porthos.

“They sat on their haunch-bones talking politics and playing chess,” Aramis said suddenly, limbs a picture of ease. “I remember it was very tedious.”

“You mistook it for Hell, Aramis.”

He shrugged expressively. “I'm prone to fancies and flights of verbal persiflage. You'd best not take that at all seriously. Now can we get on with the reconnaissance? The sooner done, the sooner you can get back to mooning after your wife, or throttling her, whichever seems good at the time.”

Porthos hissed between his teeth. Athos said only, “We're done here.”

Aramis sighed in exasperation. “My dear Athos -” Just then a drip of water falling from a higher branch touched his hand and he flinched so hard he almost fell out of the tree, sliding until Porthos caught him by the collar and held him in place long enough to regain his grip. He did not look at any of them as he eased his way down.

“I’ll do a one-man look-see when it’s a little darker,” he announced casually, twitching his coat into adjustment. “Wolf-and-lamb time is best.” Athos said nothing, but led them back into the fir woods. “Athos, did you hear me?” Aramis asked with an edge like an over-honed knife in his voice, sharp, but near to breaking.

“I heard,” the Captain said crisply, leading them to their tiny, hidden camp. “There’s time for food first. You will eat it.”

Aramis huffed, twitching as the big man strode a little too close behind. He followed Athos into the darkness of the woods.

 

**

 

_two years ago_

He came out of the darkness to a smack of cold water, burning as it went up his nose and down his throat. He wriggled away spluttering, gasping, and narrow, fierce fingers clamped on his jaw, forcing the water down him.

“Drink, you bastard, or you'll be sorry for it later.” It was an old man who said it, knotted and sour as a willow root, who held him there until he swallowed the dank and dusty water.

“Peace,” he said, when he could breathe, flopping an arm across his face to dry it. He was awkwardly on his back, on a bare padding of cloth over loose earth and jumbled stones, with a wadding of something propping up his neck, leaving his head to hang unnervingly exposed. It ached. “I pray you, an introduction before such an intimate acquaintance does wonders.”

A pause, and he heard a scrape as the old man moved about over the broken earth.

“You can speak,” the old man said at last.

“Yes…?” he hazarded, trying to follow him with his eyes, and then rise. His head ached, and his limbs were wobbly as a newborn… wobbly thing’s - he sagged downwards, dizzy as if water were in his head, swirling.

“Ba da ba ba-ba-ba...” said the old man nastily.

He blinked. “... Are you quite well, sir?”

A scoff. “Welcome to my domain, Aramis.”

Aramis - (Was he Aramis? He could be Aramis) - Aramis rolled to his side and saw the old man in full display - withered but arrow-straight, his beard and hair long and grey, wrapped in full robes of rusty black, in the centre of a circular room, brick-walled, with a high conical roof like an oven.

“What is this place?” he - Aramis - asked.

“It is Hell,” said the old man portentously. “The amenities are poor, but there is unlimited time to reflect.” He grinned horribly, showing yellow teeth. “What punishment of God is not a gift, Aramis?”

He nodded politely, then cringed as something churned inside his head again. But one must consider one’s manners.

“Excuse me, sir, have we met before?”

The old man considered him for a long moment, then began to laugh.

 

**

 

1 Psalms 130: _Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may already have realised that I've put them in an oubliette - a kind of prison that opens at the top, where prisoners are left to be forgotten, hence the name. There's a couple of refs here:
> 
> https://youtu.be/eM-JzqCULI0 (brief introduction)
> 
> https://youtu.be/41romUVPopE (longer exploration, courtesy of the vlogger Aquachigger)
> 
> The best reference involved an in-doors oubliette, with the entrance placed between a kitchen and the chateau bakery, but I wanted some rain and snow coming in, so mine is placed in the courtyard.
> 
> Yes. Yes this is a horrible thing that people actually did to each other.


	2. In which the devil introduces himself.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prayer for Saint Michael Archangel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note to anyone reading this series out of order: I encourage you to read these installments any way you feel comfortable. But I think you should know that there’s information here that is a bit spoilery for earlier stories in the series. Cheers.

“Aramis.”

He blinked and raised his eyes.

The boy’s lean brown face was in front of him, his warm eyes dark in the gathering gloom and with a smudge of soot on one cheek. Aramis tugged loose a white handkerchief, spat on it, and cleaned off the mark. He tucked the cloth away and patted d’Artagnan gently on the shoulder, smiling. “All done.”

“Uh, thank you,” d’Artagnan replied, moving his features into expressionlessness. “Here,” he said, pressing a warm cup into Aramis’ hands. “There’s supper.”

“I thank you,” said Aramis courteously, and sipped from it as the boy picked his way to the other side of the little camp, shoulders set askew like an unnerved cat. They had chosen the site with care earlier that day - a dip in the ground, surrounded by slopes to the north and west, and the great torn roots of an ancient fallen tree to the south, meant that they could risk the light of a fire in the chilly, damp weather. Even so, the flames were very small, and the fire pit dug very deep. Perched on one of the broken roots Aramis sipped again from the copper cup.

“It’s good,” he said, raising his eyebrows. The broth, hot and thickened with shreds of savoury meat, was both light and rich, fragrant with herbs and a tingle of expensive spice. It was far, far better than what he was used to eating at a campfire. (He blinked suddenly, remembering the bitterness and mouth-feel of charred fish, and wondered why he associated that with happiness.)

“Athos has been holding out on us,” rumbled Porthos, setting small lumps of wood on the glowing coals. “If we’d known he could cook like that, we’d never let him stop.”

D’Artagnan settled by the fire, took a sip of his own and squawked, “This is Constance’s soup!”

Athos, sitting saturnine behind him, answered, “I was given the recipe before we left the Convent of Bourbon-les-Eaux. And,” he added fairly, “some premade stock.”

D’Artagnan’s mouth shut with a click and Porthos nudged him hard with an elbow. “You better watch out,” he said, snickering, his face in the little fire’s glow a warm bronze against the muddy blue sky behind him. “If a woman gives out her recipes, well, you know what they say about giving out recipes…”

“What else did Constance give you?” d’Artagnan asked anxiously, twisting around to stare at his Captain.

“D’Artagnan,” Athos answered repressively. “I was on good terms with the lady in question for years before you challenged me to a fight.”

“There was a donkey,” Aramis volunteered, “I remember the story.”

“Even so,” Athos answered, his pale face rather blank, though there was a faint smile curling on his lips.

“Athos…?” d’Artagnan asked plaintively.

“Perhaps it is best to drink the broth while it is hot,” suggested Athos.

Aramis laughed softly and drank his own, and another cup’s worth quietly poured by Porthos.

After a time Porthos stretched easily and said, “I’m going to scout a bit - get a look of the land while there’s still a scrap of light.”

“I’ll go with you,” said d’Artagnan. “Might catch a rabbit.”

“Country boys who see in the dark,” Porthos muttered, shaking his head ruefully. “I’ll put you in front like a hunting dog, eh…”

When their voices had faded Aramis stood, and took a turn around the fire, his feet moving easily over the rough ground.

“It will be over soon, I imagine,” said Athos quietly, as Aramis’ fingers stroked the muzzle of one of the horses, a leggy, well-mannered, utterly boring gelding who had taken the place of little yellow Jezebel on account of his speed.

“I imagine it will,” Aramis answered, scratching under the gelding’s jaw, fingers working deep into the winter-thick shagginess.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“You asked me once if I had encountered Spymaster Vargas in an… intimate fashion,” Aramis said distantly, looking out into the damp forest. “I hadn’t. I’ve read his notes though - the man keeps meticulous logs and has written a short treatise on the theory of breaking men. Compared to that, Athos, my experiences are nothing. To greet about them is an exercise in unparalleled effrontery.”

“Alright,” said Athos mildly. Aramis looked over his shoulder and saw him working at his pipe, his hands moving like little white birds in the gloom as he scraped out a plug of burnt tobacco and replaced it with new.

“If you will not tell me ‘what’,” Athos continued, eyes on his pipe as he tamped down the shreds of fragrant tobacco, “will you tell me 'why'?”

Aramis huffed and sat down near the fire, his legs tucked under him like a tailor and his hands on his knees. “Some secrets,” he said carefully, “there's a burning need to bury them in darkness. I've felt it; haven't you? And when a person is a bit close to that secret, and currently off her feet, one might worry about her being caught up in the shovelling, just another inconvenient piece to throw in the pit or shut up any which way.

“I have a little leverage, and I'm helping... certain people... make their decisions... kindly.”

“Bragelonne,” said Athos roughly. “You're buying the estate in Blois with this. You didn't trust Treville to do right by - Madame.”

Aramis was silent for a time, then said, “Forgive me, Athos, for being a nasty suspicious man. And fond of putting my own thumbprint on events, I cannot deny. And I wanted, I wanted her to have _something_ she didn't have to steal, or lie for, or buy over and over with her skills. Something that's hers.” He huffed in amusement. “She might well wager it on cards or burn it down inside a year, mind, and there's an undeniable satisfaction in stealing something large, Athos, you have no idea. But it's hers to choose.”

“Has anyone called you an incurable romantic, Aramis?” said Athos, drawing on the pipe.

“I thought we'd just established I'm a nasty, suspicious man.”

Athos wished, down to his bones, that he could say, _You didn't need to do this: Treville is honorable._ He didn't know anymore.

Aramis hummed, thoughtfully. “I'd probably have found my way back here eventually. There is an inevitability to some things.”

“The leverage... what's here that interests Treville so much?”

Aramis was silent for so long Athos thought he had fallen asleep. “I was coming back to France, after escorting friends and their children to Mantua. They had been living in Spain, which was about to get rather unsafe for Frenchwomen when the war started.”

“Agnes and her patroness.”

“Even so.” Silence. “I'm prone to seasickness, Captain; I didn't want to get back on the boat. What's a shortcut through the mountains of Savoy, hm?”

“But something happened.”

“He stumbled onto someone else's terrible secret,” said Aramis quietly. “Must have been a bit curious, I think. I'm guessing. I don't remember that part at all. A few pieces of the after.”

“Aramis, what's down there?”

“Someone Treville wants alive just a little more than he wants him dead.”

 

**

 

_two years ago_

 

In the buried chamber the withered old man laughed loud and long, cackling until tears ran down his craggy cheeks.

“If this is Hell,” he answered at last, “I must be the devil, the lord of the domain.” He stood over Aramis and said, “Would you not say?”

“Yes, sir,” said Aramis, trying not to flinch. The slow swirling of the black robes hurt his eyes, and his head ached.

“I am the Cardinal Armand-Jean du Plessis,” the old man said sonorously, tasting the words with enjoyment, “Duke of Richelieu, and Fronsac, and the Bishop of Luçon.”

He knelt, seizing Aramis’ chin and forcing him to look at him. “But you may call me _dominie.”_

 

**

 

Prayer for Saint Michael Archangel: _...and do you, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this particular reveal is for you an _Ohhhhhh_ moment, as opposed to a _Whut - that came out of nowhere!_ moment. In any case, the die is cast, the secret is out.
> 
> Kudos to Mylos, who laid out her theory of ‘the cat-loving grey gentleman’ and the rumors of his demise earlier this week, and danceswithscissors, who asked me way back in December if the devil afflicted with rheumatic feet was Richelieu. She was right.
> 
>  
> 
> // _dominie_ \- an old word for 'teacher' (It's related to the Latin for 'lord' or 'master of the household' if anyone's interested in etymology.)
> 
> // _To greet about them..._ \- more archaic English, "to greet" in the sense of cry out or wail (the word's been reduced to 'call out in welcome' in modern times). This has been brought to you by the Committee for Unearthing Old Words From a Dank and Mossy Graveyard and Kicking Them, Groaning, Back to Life. (We're looking for a better title.)


	3. In which Aramis tells his beads.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catechism

Aramis blinked. There was a cup of Kitty’s bitter tea in his hands, warming them in the autumn chill. His breath steamed in the cooling air - dragon-breath, he remembered calling it as a child. Away from the tiny, sunken fire, through the trees, the sky was turning the deep vivid blue of lapis lazuli, the colour used to paint the Virgin’s robes.

“Porthos isn’t back yet.”

“He’s hunting rabbits with d’Artagnan,” said Athos calmly. “We wanted some meat for the pot.”

Aramis stirred, turning the cup in his hands. “I should go help them. They don’t know the ground.”

“It’s fine. The boy likes showing off his hunting skills. Gascons, what would you.”

“If you like.” Aramis near drained the cup, leaving the dregs in the bottom. (He refrained from asking where Kitty and Madame were, he wasn’t _that_ rattled.) “Did you know I found this place in a poem?” At Athos’ questioning look he expanded: _”Lancelot and Guinevere,_ that comic poem that d’Artagnan keeps complaining about - one of the cantos was all about a long conversation between the knight and Merlin the Enchanter. And tucked inside the rhymes was a map back here, in case I did not remember the proper way.”

“That’s… clever. And patient. You always had a knack for remembering poetry.”

“Well,” said Aramis with a shy smile, “I know my catechism.” He stopped suddenly, eyes wide, covering his mouth with his hand.

 

**

 

_two years ago_

 

He came out of the darkness to a rattle of beads. He was lying on his side, on rough ground through scant padding. An old man sat before him, working a simple rosary through his fingers.

“Where are we?” he said dryly, swallowing around a throat like a desert. “What is this place?”

The old man looked up and smiled. “This is Hell,” he said cheerfully, “and I am the master of it.”

 

**

 

He came out of the darkness to a rattle of beads. He was lying on his side, on rough ground through scant padding. An old man sat before him, working a simple rosary through his fingers.

“Where are we?” he said dryly, swallowing around a throat like a desert. “What is this place?”

The old man rolled his eyes. “This is Hell,” he said sourly. “I am your _dominie_ and you will do what I say.”

“Yes, _dominie,”_ he said obediently. “W-why are we here?”

“Only the damned come to Hell,” the old man cooed. “If you came here you must have done something _very wicked._ Surely?”

“Yes, _dominie.”_

 

**

 

He came out of the darkness to an ill grey light. Cold, bland-and-bitter sops were being forced into his mouth. He choked and gasped, struggled. Iron fingers gripped the back of his neck.

 _”Swallow,_ damn you. You’re not getting out of here as easily as dying.”

 

**

 

He came to awareness, out of darkness, and opened his eyes, to darkness. His head ached. “Where are we?” he asked, to the movements nearby. “What is this place.”

“This is Hell,” an old man said tiredly in the blackness. “And you have earned yourself a place in it.”

 

**

 

A hand gripped his shoulder as he blinked awake. Amid the broken rubble of a circular room, he was being eased upright to rest with his back against a chilly brick wall, loose-limbed as a discarded marionette. There was a patter of drizzle coming from the ceiling, much of it landing in a great earthenware bowl which squatted in the centre, lopsided that the crack in it would not leak.

His head ached. He reached to feel the back of it and his hand was slapped away.

“Don’t.”

He turned awkwardly and it was as if the sea was in his head, swirling around. He reached desperately for purchase and found himself gripping the spindly, bone-and-rawhide body of an old man. He gagged.

“Vomit on me and I’ll _kill_ you.”

He swallowed back desperately.

“Where are we? What is this place?”

“This is Hell, where the dead men go, and I am your _dominie.”_

 

**

 

“Where are we? What is this pl-” A sharply flung pebble stung his cheek. “Ow!”

 

**

 

He came out of the darkness to a circular room floored with rubble. An old man in robes of rusty black paced back and forth, hands clasped behind him, back straight as an arrow.

“Where - ?” he croaked, then covered his mouth with his hand.

The old man turned, a scrap of stone tucked between his long fingers. “So you can learn,” he said, his fierce hawk eyes brightening.

“Yes, _dominie,”_ he said.

 

**

 

He lay on his side with his head propped up on the old man’s bony thigh and a mantle of moldy wool flung over him. In the darkness of the circular cell he could not sleep, his breathing ragged against the pain in his head, the cold in his bones. A knotted hand wrapped around the back of his neck, rubbing with one thumb against the tension that wound into his tendons and muscles as he shuddered.

“Your pain does not matter,” the old man told him. _“You_ do not matter. It will pass through you and around you and you will stand, still and silent, in its wake. And then,” he added kindly, “even in Hell you might be useful to me. Aramis. You want to be useful, don't you?”

“Yes, _dominie,”_ Aramis said.

 

**

 

He blinked out of the darkness into a dim circular cell. He was propped against the wall, a string of beads new fallen from his clumsy fingers.

His _dominie_ picked the rosary up and folded it patiently back into his hands. _”Pater noster…”_ he prompted.

With relief Aramis felt the old words of the formal prayer unspool from him, _”Pater noster, qui es in caelis…”_

 

**

 

The old man paced back and forth in the dimness of the cell, his black robes swirling and his breath steaming white in the icy air. A few shreds of snow fell from the high grate above and at times he passed through the circle of sunlight on the floor and crosses in shadow fell on his face.

“What punishment of God…”

“... is not a gift,” Aramis said.

“And yet, sometimes we must examine this before his ways become clear to us. ‘I wish that God might speak with thee, and would open His lips to thee, that He might show thee the secrets of wisdom…’ Stand up.”

Aramis adjusted his clumsy limbs and shifted his weight, where he was propped against the wall. He cringed. “I don’t think I can,” he apologised. “I’m sorry, _dominie.”_

The old man turned, robes swirling, his face drawn into lines of anger.

 

**

 

_now_

 

“You know how to ride, and to shoot straight,” said Athos with a slight smile, “and many other good things besides. And you are kind. You are far more than a string of memorised phrases.”

Aramis stirred, looking out into the woods. Then he said, “This isn’t really a good time to be hunting rabbits.”

“They’re grown men, who know their woodcraft. It will be fine.”

“Yes, Captain.”

 

**

 

from the Catechism of St Thomas Aquinas: _I wish that God might speak with thee, and would open His lips to thee, that He might show thee the secrets of wisdom, and that His law is manifold: and thou mightest understand that He exacteth much less of thee than thy iniquity deserveth._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // A catechism is, in general, a method of oral teaching via set questions and answers. (Pre-literate people can store immense amounts of information through rote learning, which is like any skill and improves with practice.) The Catechism of St Thomas of Aquinas is actually really, really long, and kind of… discussed doctrinal theory for priests as opposed to something quite simple for educating small children. We saw Aramis quoting it in “Taken By the Collar I”
> 
> // "To ride, to shoot straight, and to tell the truth," is what the historian Herodotus said of the ancient Persians.
> 
> // If this short passage from _Twenty Years After_ would be of interest to anyone: 
> 
> "I remember that at the Castle of Rueil the Cardinal Richelieu had some horrible 'oubliettes' constructed."
> 
> "Oh! never fear," said Aramis. "Richelieu was a gentleman, our equal in birth, our superior in position. He could, like the king, touch the greatest of us on the head, and touching them make such heads shake on their shoulders. But Mazarin is a low-born rogue, who can at the most take us by the collar, like an archer."
> 
> Yes. I am a literary geek. You’re welcome.


	4. In which there is a lady.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genesis 22.7-8

_two years ago_

There were words he knew, though he had trouble envisioning them. _Fire, feu, fuego, fuoco. Flower, fleur, flor, fiore. Sun, soleil, sola, sole._ They were bright, all of them, he was told.

The woman who hung above them was bright.

“This puts me in an awkward position,” she told the old man. “If word of your imprisonment gets out, Your Eminence, there will be war between my brother and my husband. Neither France nor Savoy can afford conflict at this time. You understand the difficulty.”

The old man did, apparently, his mouth under the wispy beard twisted as if eating prunes, but he did not disagree.

The bosun’s chair in which she perched swayed gently, and the folds of her yellow dress caught scraps of sunlight from above and made them rich. _Bright, brillant, brillante._ Her eyes were warm and dark - coffee-coloured? and her silky black hair was twisted into complex knots. She looked calmly at Aramis. “You should not be here,” she said. “I am sorry.”

“It is forgotten,” he answered politely.

Something in her jaw moved.

“Christine,” said the old man.

“‘Your Grace,’” she told him, with calm finality.

“I was your confessor, once, when you were Madame de France.”

“I became the Duchess of Savoy upon my marriage,” she answered. “You must understand, Armand. You must understand that I love my husband, very much.”

“You used to love France.”

“I do.” The bosun’s chair drifted slowly back and forth above them. “As I love Savoy. As I love my brother, weak as he is, as weak as you made him, Armand.”

“Some ponies shouldn’t have their own head,” the old man said sourly. “I wish you had stayed in France, Christine. Oh! what we would have made of her then!”

Something moved in the lady’s jaw again. “My husband knew Cluzet from boyhood,” she told the old man. “When he heard finally how his chancellor died, that he had come so close to a rescue and passed Cluzet by, he wept in my arms as a beaten child. Understand, Armand, there is nothing - there will be nothing - I can do to convince him of your release.”

“He must trust you very much, to tell you about me.”

“Oh my word yes. I have proven my loyalty beyond doubting, ever since the mess that one caused brought you to my attention.” She gazed at Aramis, where he sat against the wall, legs crooked up. “Once again you are a sacrifice, Musketeer.”

“‘But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’” Aramis quoted gravely.

She held herself very still. “I can arrange for a quick death for you,” she said at last.

“Suicides are damned in the eyes of God,” he answered quietly. “The damned stay in Hell.”

“Would you deprive me of my only conversationalist?” the old man interrupted. “If you want to wipe at a guilty conscience give us something we can touch.”

“Like?” Christine answered curiously.

“The week old bread they throw down would not nourish a sparrow. Give us fruit, a little meat: something to mend this one’s bones.”

“Do you want this?” she asked Aramis.

He sought for words. “As the lady pleases,” he said at last. He wanted to say something gracious or gallant, something clever that would make everything right. But the words were not in him, _nothing, nullité, nulidad, niente._ He hid his face in the crook of his elbow and wept.

From his self-made darkness he heard her call upward, and the scraping of ropes, the grate of heavy iron above them. When she had gone the old man, his _dominie,_ said, “That was the Duchess of Savoy, the key to a door which guards France. Yes, she must be pleased.”

After a time, he added, “If anyone were to come for you, they would have done so by now. Either they are dead or you, too, have been forgotten.” A huff of breath. _“I_ am sorry for that.” Another huff and a rude jostle against his shoulder. “Now get up, Aramis. If you don’t move your legs will fall off.”

“I can’t,” said Aramis.

“You will,” his _dominie_ said bluntly, pulling his arm across bony shoulders.

“I'm tired,” said Aramis.

“I'm bored,” said the old man. “Which is more important, do you think? Now up, up, up, for I cannot carry you.”

_Solitude, soulager, soledad, sollevare._

 

**

 

Genesis 22.7-8 _“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”_

_Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // _“This puts me in an awkward position,” she told the old man._ \- My general rubric for whether I should put in an otherwise unlikely plot point or character is, ‘Can I get an interesting conversation out of it?’ This, where Christine tells Richelieu she’s going to let him rot _for the greater good_ made all the plotting which got me to this point worthwhile.
> 
> // _Madame de France_ \- a title held by the eldest unmarried French princess. Christine’s loyalties are, shall we say, conflicted at this time. (Wasn’t she played by a wonderful actress? I’m glad I got a chance to bring her back for a bit.)
> 
> // _he had come so close to a rescue_ \- One of the (many) things I love about 1.04 is that the Duke isn’t really a bad guy. He’s obnoxious as hell, certainly, but going by the information he has (the cultivated belief that a platoon of highly trained soldiers were about to assassinate him; news that his old chancellor is captive; the general (and accurate) feeling that people are plotting against him) he doesn’t behave unreasonably. I could easily see a ‘hero’ character doing exactly what he did. _There’s so much moral grey_ in The Good Soldier, I love it.
> 
> ETA
> 
> !!! 
> 
> My READERS' TEARS mug just arrived in the mail! It is pink, and it is beautiful. ^_^ Drinking from it now.


	5. The devil teaches scripture.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Judges 7:5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Things are looking up, maybe a little bit.)

“I think perhaps we are not framing this situation in the right way,” the _dominie_ said at last.

Aramis crouched against the wall and watched him where he sat in a circle of wan light by the great earthenware bowl in the centre of the cell.

“The book of Judges,” the old man continued, “is an account of wise counsellors who are mighty leaders for the Lord. One of them, Gideon, came in his time to the wells of Harad, near the camp of Madian. And following him were 32,000 men.”

“That’s high,” said Aramis. “Were they conscripts or career soldiers?”

“A good question to ask. They were volunteers. Don’t!”

Aramis dropped the hand reaching for the back of his head. “It itches,” he said peevishly.

“You’ll be sorry if you scratch it,” the old man said.

“Yes, _dominie.”_ He folded his hands and listened.

“32,000 men,” the old man continued, “untrained farmers and militia, very much in over their heads. And the Lord - or Gideon’s own sense of strategy - concluded that this would never do. He offered that those who were fearful might go home, and only ten thousand remained. And they were still too many.”

“Difficult to feed,” Aramis commented, frowning, “if Gideon hadn’t set up his logistics properly.”

“You ask good questions but we stray from my point. After Gideon had communed with the Lord he set his men at the waters, and he watched them. Most fell to their knees and drank their fill; but three hundred held themselves differently. They scooped it up with their hands and lapped at it.” The old man dipped his hand in the bowl and demonstrated. “Why do you think that is, Aramis?”

“They weren’t as thirsty…?”

“Oh, but they were. The day was hot and they had laboured long. They thirsted, Aramis, their lips cracked with it.” He watched the younger man lick his own lips, near hidden in his growing beard. “But there are leeches in the water, to be swallowed if one drinks without consideration, and crocodiles to catch the unwary. The trained soldiers, the good men, they drank with caution.” He drank again from the cup of his palm. _“Lambuerint aquas sicut solent canes lambere,”_ he said, tasting the words. “‘Lap as the dog laps.’”

“What are you trying to tell me?” asked Aramis.

“A soldier before the Lord, a competent man, he stands and thinks. He uses his hands.” The older man studied him. “I’m not bringing you water any more. Prove to me you deserve it.” His lips twitched. “And I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”

It took hours, before Aramis had hauled himself upright, fingers gripping into a gap of missing mortar to keep his balance. The cell was darkening by the time he had tottered to the bowl, though he did not fall to his knees once. He crouched, uneasily, and dipped his hand into the dank and chilly water: delicious.

“Good boy,” said the old man.

 

**

 

By the time winter had truly set its grip on the little stone cell, Aramis was reliably on his feet for much of the day. In the afternoons, when the faint heat from nearby bread-ovens had faded and it was still light to see, they used their improvised salle to practice old court dances, and the antique fencing forms that the old man remembered. Sometimes they just walked in patient circles, shaking off the cold as much as they could.

“I thought you were a priest once, _dominie,”_ Aramis said one day, crossing a slender white wand and another, broken to the length of a main-gauche, into a salute. He moved through a drill with careful slowness.

The old man adjusted his wrist a little, and nudged a foot. “Italian,” he snapped.

Aramis refrained from rolling his eyes, and shifted tongues. “And yet a man of the gown studies the ways of the sword.” He moved again through the drill and the old man nodded curtly.

“I wanted to be a soldier when I was youth,” he explained, picking up his own improvised foil and dagger, “but my family needed a churchman, and that was that. The study served me well at La Rochelle, and elsewhere.”

Aramis watched his face as if he were the most interesting thing in the world. “You’re still angry they didn’t let you. After all this time.”

The old man tutted. _“Hear the instruction of thy father and forsake not the law of thy mother,”_ he said in Latin, quoting the Book of Proverbs, _“that grace may be added to thy head and a chain of gold to thy neck.”_ He snickered. “Yes. Well.”

 _“I am poured out like water,”_ Aramis answered softly, _“and all my bones are scattered. My heart is become like wax, melting.”_

The old man looked at him in silence. Then he tapped Aramis’ wrist again. “Repeat the drill. Back straight, keep your weight centred and light. Begin.”

 

**

 

Judges 7:5 _... They that shall lap the water with their tongues, as dogs are wont to lap, thou shalt set apart by themselves..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // _"The book of Judges is an account of wise counsellors who are mighty leaders for the Lord."_ \- It occurred to me, extremely belatedly, that Richelieu would have been _all about_ this bit of the bible, dog-eared pages, marginalia, and all.
> 
> // _‘Lap as the dog laps.’_ \- there has to be a technical term for a phrase that comes across so utterly different when quoted out of context. (It sounds sorta… degrading to me, when I just read it in a single sentence, but in the story it is anything but.) Also, for the record, I in no way advocate this kind of ‘therapy’. Richelieu is an arse, in a shitty mood, who got lucky that it worked this time.
> 
>  _“My son, hear the instruction of thy father…”_ \- Proverbs 1:8-9
> 
>  _“I am poured out like water”_ \- Psalms 21:15
> 
> I have read more of the Bible _in this past week_ than I have in years...


	6. The rose-tree rebellion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song of Solomon 2:14

Athos watched Aramis cautiously. His friend had sat quiet for half an hour, lost in a blank and silent study. The low coals of the little fire stood brighter in contrast to the darkening sky. Athos wondered, if a bit of bread were placed in Aramis’ hands, whether he’d eat again.

He was plotting the distance to Porthos’ pack and the hidden stash of jujubes inside when Aramis stirred suddenly, his head lifting to look out into the darkness. “They’ve -”

“You said you talked politics with the old man,” Athos interrupted, “and played chess. Scripture. What else?”

Aramis’ gaze strayed unwillingly back to him. “Well,” he said softly, the corners of his mouth curling up. “There was a little poetry.”

“Of what nature?”

Aramis’ smile grew.

 

**

 

_hell_

 

 _“A girl stood in a red dress,”_ Aramis said, and touched his lips with the tips of his fingers, eyes wide, breath steaming in the chilly air.

The old man looked up sardonically, bushy eyebrows raised. “Marie de Medici wore black at the time,” he said. “I don’t recall what clothes her waiting-women were in.” He tugged Aramis’ hands down to an array of pebbles on the floor, where he was demonstrating an old intrigue between the Dowager Queen and her son. “Marie just here outside the city, her advisor Concini very much in the past tense and the pieces of his body mostly _here,_  Louis and a handful of _mignons_ around him quartered in this part of the palace with a small troop led by young Treville...”

“Where were you?”

“I was the go-between,” he answered blandly, “a very junior attache in Marie’s train. I carried the letters, that’s all.”

“You simply carried them?”

“I was nothing but a humble messenger.”

“Hm.” Aramis cocked his head thoughtfully as he scattered the pieces and then set them back, memorising the position with his fingers. “Do tell.”

“I shall do so,” said the _dominie,_ grinning.

 _“A girl stood in a red dress,”_ Aramis repeated, softly startled, _“when you touched her, her dress rustled.”_

“Am I telling you this to hear the beauty of my voice?” the old man asked pointedly.

“Sorry, _dominie.”_

“Good.”

 _“Eia,”_ said Aramis, and clapped his hand over his mouth.

His eyebrows quirked sadly, and his eyes flicked away, then down, then back to the old man, who clipped him across the temple, but lightly, and said, “Five-wounds-of-Christ, if I let you finish the poem will you pay attention?”

“It’s a poem?” Aramis asked, lowering his hand.

“Not one I taught you, but yes.” The old man stretched, something popping in his back. _“The girl stood…”_ he prompted.

 _“... like a little rose-tree,”_ Aramis said cautiously, feeling out the Latin, tasting the words as if each were a grape ready to burst in his mouth with the sweetness, _“her face shone and her mouth bloomed. Eia!”_ His smile, also, bloomed.

“Are you done?”

“I believe so, _dominie._ I shall attend.”

The old man harrumphed, and set out the stones again, precise as a chess problem.

“Eating an orange  
While making love,  
Makes for bizarre enj-  
Oyment thereof.”

Aramis touched his mouth again in alarm. “I am truly sorry, _dominie,_ I won’t let it happen again.”

The old man stared at him, eyes narrowed. Then he gestured with his hand. “Continue.”

 _“Now she stands out among Lydian women as after sunset the rose-fingered moon exceeds all stars,"_ Aramis declared solemnly.

“That’s Sappho. More.”

“Don’t be afraid; never give up hope.”

“I don’t recognise that but what would you. More.”

Aramis responded with a character portrait of a society lady from a decade-old _roman a clef,_ sharp, scathing, and kindly affectionate.

“Of _course_ you read novels,” the old man sighed. “Wasting your time… Continue.”

_“‘Give me my Camerius, you wicked girls!’ One of them, baring her bosom, says, ‘Look here, he is hiding between my rosy breasts!’”_

His _dominie_ chuckled ruefully and, sighing, waved Aramis up. He stacked the little stones back in their place by the basin as the younger man moved in loops about their cell, reciting poetry as fast as his tongue could move, a hymn to Aphrodite in her sparrow-drawn chariot, a catch about a coffee mill, long streamers of words from the Song of Solomon.

Aramis chanted, _“Behold my beloved speaketh to me: Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come.”_ He patted the brick wall affectionately and added, _“My dove, who art in the clefts of the rock.”_ His eyes rose up the wall, to the high arching ceiling and the circular grate which prisoned them. _“My dove, who art in the clefts of the rock,_ he said again, thoughtfully, and added, _“in the hidden places of the stairs…”_

 

**

 

“The consolation of poetry,” Aramis told Athos seriously from where he sat on the gnarled tree-root by the fire. “It enriches the mind and elevates the spirit. You never know what will be helpful, therefore you should read as much of it as possible.” He looked at the jujubes in his hand and ate another, eyes twinkling.

"What happened next?" Athos asked gravely.

 

**

 

Song of Solomon 2:14 _My dove who art in the cleft of the rock, in the hidden places of the stairs, show me thy face, let thy voice sound in my ears for thy voice is sweet and thy face comely._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // _“A girl stood in a red dress…”_ \- “Stetit puella” from the collection _Carmina Burana._ (We’ve seen Aramis quote it before.)
> 
> // _“Eating an orange…”_ \- this is from Tom Lehrer, 20th century. Look, I could dig through 17th C French poetry for something pithy about sex and fruit, but it would take time and then you’d have to translate it, and, yeah… It’s just a fun poem, okay?
> 
> // _roman a clef_ \- ‘romance with a key’, a novel with characters barely altered from contemporary people (and scandals).
> 
> // _”Now she stands out among Lydian women as after sunset the rose-fingered moon exceeds all stars"_ \- Sappho!
> 
> // _“Don’t be afraid; never give up hope.”_ \- he learned that from Constance!
> 
> // _“‘Give me my Camerius, you wicked girls!’”_ \- Catullus, also something Aramis has quoted elsewhere.
> 
> // _“Behold my beloved speaketh to me: Arise…”_ \- Song of Solomon 2:10 and 2:14


	7. In which Aramis discusses how he wished for the wings of a dove.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezekial 7:16

“What happened next?” asked Athos.

Aramis tucked the jujube in his cheek with his tongue, savouring the sweetness, and answered, “I think that somewhere, deep down, I was thinking of my father’s _columbier.”_ He lifted his eyes. “The brewer of brandy. He had an old free-standing one on his lands from the days when the family had potency, with a pretty little cupola roof and a few pigeons inside to fertilise his vineyards. I never used to bother with the ladder but climbed with hands and feet on the edges of the nesting boxes - the birds didn’t mind, peaceful little things - to the top.” He smiled a little, both innocent and wicked, and added, “None of the _local_ boys could cross the underside of the dome. But I did also like the view _very_ much.”

He passed the little cloth bag of jujubes back to Athos and said, “I might also have been thinking of a Roman tomb; I won’t deny that it was morbid down there.” He gestured with his free hand, up and then into a curve. “But I stopped seeing it as an unused bread oven or a blank cave face but instead a column of niches carved into the brick wall.” His eyes dropped, lifted. “The old man always used to say, if you can’t find leverage, _make_ it. So we made a pick out of a white sticky thing and a fallen nail and chipped away the mortar to pull bricks for hand holds.”

“It must have taken a long time.”

Aramis shrugged. “I suppose. I still blank on much of the winter. Do you know the shepherd boy’s tale of the diamond mountain and the bird whittling it down with its beak?” Athos nodded slightly. “Ask yourself, Athos, if the bird had anything else to _do.”_ He looked at Athos sharply. “You have a question?”

“You remember that your father brewed brandy?”

“Mm. M’sieu d’Herblay, God rest his bones.” Aramis smiled softly, eyes distant. “I turned the last of his hair white when I lived there, poor man.” He glanced up. “Porthos didn’t mention this while you two were discussing your problem child. Huh.”

“Aramis.”

“It’s fine, ask away.”

Athos licked his scarred lips and said, carefully, “Does this mean that you, too, have an estate tucked away somewhere?”

“Pfeh, no. Tangled as the papers were when M’sieu died, there was never any chance that a whoreson of dubious provenance was going to inherit; the land went to a third cousin in the end. Your face, Athos, is quite the picture.”

Athos, frozen in the act of putting a splintery chunk of dried wood on the buried fire, dropped it with an oath. The coals broke and sent up sparks. “No,” he said dryly, “Porthos didn’t mention that.”

Aramis twitched his shoulders, troubled. “I’m sorry, Captain,” he said. “It used to mean a lot to him - to _me_ \- talking about such things never - “

“You have the right to keep your life private,” said Athos calmly. “You always did.”

Aramis nodded, quick as a bird. “Ana knows,” he confided, pressing his fingertips briefly to his mouth and dropping them to his lap. “She asked me for a true thing and I just, I - some people are hard to say no to. So I.”

Athos nodded himself, but calmly. “So you told her.”

“Do you think less of me?”

Athos considered his answer carefully. He doubted that Aramis would accept a pretty lie, even if Athos had the skill to make one. Finally he said, truly, “When I disapproved of your liaison with Adele Basset, it was not her profession which troubled me, but because she was dangerous to you.”

Then he cursed himself under his breath as Aramis, even in the firelight, went white.

“Dangerous. _Dangerous,”_ he scoffed. He hunched in upon himself like a bird against the cold and looked at the ground.

Athos crossed the little campsite and sat beside Aramis, draping his winter cloak over his shoulders and chafing hands grown icy.

“There was a pistol I used to carry,” Aramis said at last. “It had arabesques chased into the barrel, and a walnut grip, that I lost around the time Adele disappeared.”

“I know it,” said Athos quietly.

“After I got it back I carried it for… years,” Aramis said, “the gun that killed Adele.” He tugged his hands away from Athos’, uneasy. “When any man with a trace of sensitivity or conscience would have known, surely? But it fit as sweetly in my hand; it fired as true.” He felt Athos stir beside him. “But I’m, I’m death to women, malignancy on two legs. Dangerous.”

 _“How can you know that?”_ Athos demanded, his voice hoarse and quietly angry. “Did my wife tell you?”

 _“Richelieu_ told me, down in the dark.”

 

**

 

Ezekial 7:16 _And such of them as shall flee shall escape: and they shall be in the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them trembling, every one for his iniquity._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // Turns out the possession of a dovecote in Medieval and Renaissance France was surprisingly fraught: “In the Middle Ages, particularly in France, the possession of a _colombier à pied_ (dovecote on the ground accessible by foot)... was a privilege of the seigneurial lord… the lord's pigeons were often seen as a nuisance by the nearby peasant farmers... [and in] numerous regions (in France) where the right to possess a dovecote was reserved solely for the nobility (Brittany, Normandy, etc.), the complaint rolls very frequently recorded formal requests for the suppression of this privilege and a law for its abolition, which was finally ratified on 4 August 1789 in France."
> 
> (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dovecote#Colombiers_and_pigeonniers_in_mediaeval_France)
> 
> And here’s another link to more on dovecotes, which is part of a fascinating resource on All Things Rock-Dove here: http://www.pigeoncontrolresourcecentre.org/html/dovecotes-pigeon-houses-columbaria.html
> 
> For the more soberly inclined, Ancient Romans used to set up burial clubs that built _columbaria_ , buildings to house cremated remains set up like the boxes in a dovecote: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbarium and http://www.ancient.eu/article/764/ 
> 
> You probably didn’t need to know all this. But now you do.
> 
> // _the diamond mountain_ \- the earliest reference I could find to the story is in Brothers Grimm (I’d thought it was older), but we’ll assume it was in European oral literature a good while before the collection was made. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/g/grimm/g86h/chapter153.html Fans of Peter Capaldi may also recognise it from _Doctor Who_ ep 9.11: Heaven Sent. “That’s a hell of a mountain./I say that’s a hell of a bird.”
> 
> This is a hell of a lot of notes.


	8. In which the devil asks for understanding.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Proverbs 31:10

“Should I give your past back to you?” Richelieu asked, tucking his hands into the long sleeves of his draggled robe. He paced in circles over the rubble and dirt, icy beneath his feet. The simple velvet slippers he’d arrived in had long since worn through and been replaced with wrappings of rags torn from his clothes. His soles knew every inch of the ground, now.

“Do I have a choice in the matter?” the boy queried from his perch on the wall, half the length of a man above Richelieu’s head. He squinted, then tapped carefully with the pick they’d made - the mortar was strong and the improvised tool delicate.

“I suppose you don’t,” Richelieu said thoughtfully. “As the older, and wiser, that falls to me. How much could you bear… how much do I know, in truth? I thought I was dying and I woke up here and Aramis, the world only stopped for _me._ There is so much I want to know right now - are we still at peace? Are we winning a war? Losing? Did they marry Louisa of Mantua off to Sweden for the treaty after all? Did it come to term and, if so, girl or boy… is that petulant murderer Gaston still in line for the throne? _I have so many questions.”_

“With regret, _dominie,_ I can answer none of them.”

“You think that’s funny?”

“No, _dominie.”_

“I do. What punishment of God is not a gift, eh, Aramis?”

“Yes, _dominie.”_

“I thought I was dying once before,” Richelieu said softly. “I thought it was the hand of God striking me down, at the trial of de Larroque.” He swivelled on his heel and circled the other way, for diversion. “I’d do it again,” he told Aramis. “France needed the ships, needs the ships, and why should I value _one woman’s_ life over all that could be saved with the shipyards bought with it?”

“Yes, _dominie.”_

“I still wonder what you were thinking, careering across the courtroom to shove a medicinal purge down my throat.”

“I did that, _dominie?”_

“Indeed you did, or tried to. But why? Patriotism, guilt, blind reflex… Christ, Aramis, did you swear a Hippocratic oath when no-one was looking? Or -” he broke off.

“I really could not say, _dominie.”_

“And after all that, it was neither God or Milady’s grudge or one of the girls but my old friend Luca, with poison dripped onto a holy relic… I knew him in the seminary. He was a very serious boy - he learned the viciousness later, or I think he did. Luca _believed,_ Aramis, did you know? He believed what he was doing was right, that anything he did was justified on that account and he burned with that belief.”

“Yes, _dominie.”_

“Why do you think that is?”

A pause, and a steady chip-chip against the mortar as the boy sought for an answer. A soft sigh. “I really could not say, _dominie.”_

“Try this one, then. Once there was a churchman of high degree, minister of souls and of the state, a thoughtful, clever man. And as many before him he took mistresses. The spirit is willing, yet the flesh craves comfort.”

“Yes, _dominie.”_

“This one was an actress, a fine, spirited woman. Pretty, yes, but in addition her wit was as sharp as a razor, her humor piquant, and there was a fire inside her that warmed in the coldest of rooms. She had a knack of rubbing his temples to soothe his headaches as nothing else could, and she soothed _him,_ also. He trusted her, more than he should have.

“One day, in the winter time, the churchman discovered that among the things he had given her - the comfortable apartments, the dresses, the jewels, the servants - she had added something of her own. A lover.”

Quiet. The chipping of mortar. The silence of a curious man.

“Alas, alas,” Richelieu continued, “the woman who had been a balm to him was tainted; he thought his head would burst. 

“He made her then an offer, to install her in his grand house in the country. As she was ushered into the carriage her heart sang with joy, oh, oh, oh! But instead he had them stop in woods blighted with new snow and he set her down in her new and dainty shoes.

“As she called her lover's name, Aramis, she was shot with the man’s own gun. What do you think of that?”

Chip-chip, tap. The grind of a solid brick, eased away from where it should have sat, four-square, as foundation.

“I think it is a story with grief in it,” Aramis said soberly.

“I know why the churchman killed her,” Richelieu said, his voice high and raucous, a traitor to him. “Faithless in one thing means faithless in others and he had shared, perhaps, a little too much of his secret mind in the drunkenness that comes after love-making, naked as Noah and as foolish. And she had hurt him too, oh yes, Aramis.

“Why the woman strayed I can surmise,” he added, voice falling. “I’ve not met a woman less frail in spirit than a man or more prone to virtue. To transform a wealthy patron into a doddering _Pantalone_ is a trick not reserved for the stage, and her lover the young soldier _was_ handsome, as handsome as -” He sighed. “Can you tell me, though, what her lover was thinking, to come sniffing at that door? In a city of beautiful, rich women free for his taking, why did he look at one who belonged to another man?”

The brick, under Aramis’ strong and clever fingers, eased out at last and fell, landing roughly in the broken earth below. “Perhaps,” Aramis said hesitantly, “perhaps he thought she belonged only to herself.”

“That’s a terrible answer.”

“I’m sorry, _dominie._ I will keep thinking on it.”

“You do that. If you haven’t forgotten this conversation in the morning.”

“I’m sorry, _dominie.”_

Richelieu stared at Aramis’ back for a long moment, and then said, “Come down, Aramis. This is a text I want you to remember. And maybe one day you shall understand it, and maybe one day so shall I.”

“Yes, _dominie.”_

 

**

 

Proverbs 31:10 _Who shall find a valiant woman? Far, and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // _a doddering Pantalone_ \- a stock character part in Commedia dell’Arte and the French theatre that was heavily influenced by it in the 17th century - an old, doddering man, obsessed with riches, often swayed by lust, who is generally the father of one of the young lovers.
> 
> // I took my bible verse from a translation of the Latin Vulgate (http://www.latinvulgate.com/lv/verse.aspx?t=0&b=22&c=31), but I’ve seen it elsewhere translated as ‘a good woman whose price is above rubies’. I liked the flavour of this one better.


	9. In which the devil expresses regret.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 Corinthians 13:1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just going to apologise in advance.
> 
> I am sorry.
> 
> I am deeply, deeply sorry.

"This won’t do,” Richelieu said kindly, rubbing the boy’s work-roughened hand. He shifted to the wrist and dug his thumbs deeply into the tendons and tightly-wound muscles - Aramis hissed - and then moved to the wiry forearm. Slowly, the claw that his hand had become under the strain of clinging to the wall loosened, until it could lie open and relaxed on his thigh. Tutting regretfully, Richelieu opened his palm and the boy gave him his other crooked hand to be worked over and straightened.

“This really won’t do,” Richelieu repeated. “If you break then it isn’t good for either of us.”

“Yes, _dominie.”_

“It is Sabbath tomorrow, the day of rest. After that we may reapportion the time spent on each of your duties. There is your health to consider.”

“Yes, _dominie.”_

“I am not an evil man, Aramis, but a practical one.” He looped his hand around the boy’s neck under the mane of greasy hair and kept it there, warm against the boy’s filthy skin, rubbing his thumb under his ear. Aramis’ eyes closed. “You did well today, so well,” Richelieu added, glancing at the black niches of handholds picked out of the brick wall. There were so many more yet to do.

“Yes, _dominie.”_

“It was never personal at Savoy, the first time. Did I even know who the lost men were? Not at all - I needed a distraction, desperately, and a troop already on the border was tailor-made for it. That’s all. It might have been anyone. Do you believe me?”

“I believe you, _dominie,”_ came Aramis’ light tenor. His black eyes had opened, and he was watching Richelieu’s face intently.

“With France’s greatest spy protected, and Spain’s agent removed from Savoyan counsels, a thousand men would not have been too much to spend, Aramis. And Treville was in dire need of a lesson, there’s that too. That blasted Gascon charged about court breaking through complex intrigues like a bull trampling a delicate spider’s web _and_ he had the ear of the King - he was a _menace._ So I taught him of the nature of sacrifice and he was a better politician for it, or at least, a more biddable one, for years afterwards.”

Richelieu squeezed the back of Aramis’ neck lightly and dropped his hand, reaching to adjust the brief cape of black velvet - torn from his burial robes - about the boy’s shoulders against the chill.

“Aramis, a score of men who had already sworn their deaths to France? I would make that trade again in the flicker of an eyelash and lose as much sleep as before, which is to say, none. But it was never personal. Do you believe me?”

“I believe you, _dominie,”_

“Good boy.” He picked up Aramis’ hands again and held them, lightly, rubbing the centres of his palms with his thumbs. The callus was already thickening. “Your conversation is on occasion lacking in spark but we can work on that. Only do as I say and we _will_ get out of here. Do you understand?”

"I understand, _dominie.”_

“And I will learn you and prosper you, for I am not an evil man or an ungrateful one.”

“Yes, _dominie.”_

“And I will, for all love, teach you better chess, for if you never learn how to sacrifice a piece you will never win a game. And I want a good game, Aramis.”

“Yes, _dominie.”_

“My good Aramis.”

The boy shut his eyes. At last he said, slowly, picking out the words as stepping stones on a dark river, “If I speak… if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love…”

Richelieu tightened his grip on Aramis’ hands. “I did not teach you that verse,” he said, mildly.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love,” Aramis repeated, wonderingly, “I am only a sounding brass or a ringing cymbal.” A tiny smile twitched at his mouth.

“But that is what _you_ are,” said Richelieu smoothly, as sweet and as rich as honey. “A cymbal. A drum for me to beat.” He dropped Aramis’ hands. “Aramis. You have no words but what I put in you.” And he whacked Aramis on the temple, fast enough to sting.

But Aramis continued, doggedly, eyes fast shut. “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge -”

“Shut up.”

“If I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love -”

“SILENCE!!” Richelieu roared, rising. “I never taught this to you.”

“If I have not love I am nothing,” Aramis said lowly. The next blow, a kick to his ribs, took his breath away, but he smiled through it. Richelieu snarled at the shock to the tender joints in his foot and ankle, then kicked him in the shoulder, knocking him backwards. He fell, knocking the back of his head against the great earthenware basin behind him with a dull thunk, and grunted, and lay still.

Richelieu stood over him, breathing hard.

“Your mother used to say that.”

Aramis, his face the ill colour of rotten milk, said nothing.

_”Shit.”_

 

**

 

1 Corinthians 13:1 _If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as a sounding brass, or a ringing cymbal._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // I’m so sorry, but this devil has been dancing on my shoulders since I saw The Queen’s Diamonds and learned what Aramis’ mum did for a living. (Given that she was very beautiful, and Richelieu has been around for a while, the chances of them having at least a passing kind of acquaintance aren’t really that bad. And, the Cardinal’s vengeance visited upon a man _tupping his mistress_ was limited to passive-aggressive snark delivered after his death. Why…?) 
> 
> That said, I did think long and hard before including it here - it adds complexity to some aspects of their relationship but is reductive to others.
> 
> But I was always going to use this passage of Corinthians as an aspect of Aramis’ rebellion against Richelieu’s teaching. And since I’m using it, let’s go the whole hog - who Aramis heard it from, and Richelieu’s own experiences with hearing it, and how those things interact with each other.
> 
> Also, I’m addicted to melodrama, there’s that too.
> 
> **
> 
> We've heard Aramis reference this verse before, in Taken By The Collar III.
> 
> **
> 
> I just checked - I broke 100,000 words on this series. Oh, wow - I DID THE TON. (This is a new and glorious experience for me.)


	10. The devil speaks of times past.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psalm 21:16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // There’s some vaguely described squick ahead. (Hopefully this is the last of the bad stuff.)

Whether it was from the second blow to his head or a return of brain-fever, over the following days the boy began to lose his words.

The moments of lucidity, sharp and clear as broken glass, gradually fell away, then the recitations of verse carnal and sacred. _Yes_ and _no, food, come here, up, rest, cold..._ they lasted longer: Richelieu could see the boy struggling to hold onto them. But they went in their time.

Understanding remained, he thought. Aramis’ eyes followed him around the cell, alert to every gesture and every shifting nuance of Richelieu’s voice. He was obedient, now, and could still be set to the tasks of sword-drill and climbing the wall and he worked long and without complaint, though he had to be prevented, at times, from picking at the back of his head or rubbing at his arms and legs, raking at the dead skin coming up under his nails as if it were rotting flesh and he sought to reveal the bones underneath. He retained the rules of chess. Richelieu spoke to him throughout the day: scripture, and poetry of his own, and old intrigues tucked away tidily in his well-trained memory. He spoke as he had once spoken to himself that he might not go mad, or forget himself. He spoke as a thrown rope to a drowning man.

One afternoon in the clenched gut of winter Richelieu gestured the boy to sit and bow his head. He parted Aramis’ hair and peered carefully at the scarring underneath, red and inflamed, and felt the heat of it with the back of his fingers. The boy caught his breath. “Peace,” Richelieu said, anointing it with a handful of snow to numb it, and the boy stilled. “All will be well,” Richelieu told him, simple as the back-country preacher he had never been. _”All will be well.”_

It was damnably cold, as fierce as any winter in the mountains, but he had survived it before, pacing underground as steady as Iona’s buried priest. In Hell there was no room for hope, according to the Italian. Be it so. They would endure.

 

**

 

“I almost bought you when you were a child,” he told Aramis one night, crouching against the wall waiting for the faint heat to come through when they lit the bread-ovens on the other side. “I doubt you remember for you were very young.” Aramis said nothing.

“You were so bright and charming. Pretty, too, with a mop of curly hair and your mother’s eyes. You would have done excellently well as a page and when you were older… even a whore’s bastard can advance in the church given an adequate sponsor. I’m much more than adequate.” He grinned to himself in the dark.

“But she told me you died.”

By the pace of his breathing Aramis was listening, for all the good it did him.

“Of course I believed her, what _possible_ reason could she have for lying? To me, her wealthiest patron? It was clear even then that she was not long for this world. A responsible mother would see to her remaining child’s future.

“Her grief was so extravagant… I can only imagine what it is to be loved like that.” He clicked his tongue. “Imagine my surprise when you arrived in Paris a decade later, a _very_ young man with such beautiful manners and Josefina’s eyes. And I realised… I realised when it was far too late to argue, Aramis, that the loveliest woman I knew - and I mean that in every sense of the term, she was _lovely_ \- simply did not trust me to do right by her son. To be even an _indifferently_ good man.

“I had thought myself too old and hard to wound and yet, she did it.”

He could hear the rustle of hair as Aramis turned his head in the dark.

Richelieu swallowed. “This is Hell and there is no room for hope in it. And the lies fall away also, even to ourselves.

“For I am always in game and the stakes are always desperate, and I will sacrifice any piece to keep it going one more day: a wealthy noblewoman, a troop of soldiers, a Captain’s honour… if you had been a child in my train, someday I would have found a use for you too. It wouldn’t have been personal, Aramis. You might well have survived it. But somehow, someway, I would have thrown you in the fire and you would have burned.

“Your mother was right. What do you think of that?”

In the cold and darkness Aramis folded himself into him, his mute flesh craving comfort. Richelieu held him still, waiting for the midnight bells to ring.

 

**

 

One morning, for no particular reason, he told Aramis the old story of King Canute, who set his chair on the shifting sand and ordered his court to keep the water away. He let the Latin words roll from him, colouring his voice like a market storyteller.

“I _order_ you not to rise onto my land, nor to wet the clothes or body of your Lord!’” he said, cracking the words like a flag in a stiff breeze, then continued, sonorous as a church bell, “But the sea carried on rising as usual without _any_ reverence for his person..."

Suddenly Aramis tilted his head and said, “Are you the King or his servants?”

Richelieu held himself still, face inscrutable. “Perhaps I am the sea.”

The boy blinked slowly, his dark eyes very innocent. “Perhaps you are the chair?”

“Such impudence, Aramis.” He put his hand to the side of the boy’s face and held it there, clucking his tongue. “Such impudence.”

 

**

 

Psalms 21:16 _My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue hath cleaved to my jaws: and thou hast brought me down into the dust of death._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // _as steady as Iona’s buried priest_ \- There was a real Brother Odhran of County Meath, who followed Saint Columba/Columcille to the island of Iona. And there were _stories_ about a Brother Odhran who was buried alive under the new monastery to settle the native spirits, and then they opened up the grave and he was still walking back and forth and he _leaped up_ and… (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oran_of_Iona)
> 
>  _In Hell there was no room for hope, according to the Italian._ \- a reference to Dante Alighieri's _Inferno_ , which includes a sign above the gate of Hell telling people to abandon their hope. 
> 
> // We've heard of King Canute before, in The Going Down of the Sun.
> 
> https://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/123/Canute%20Waves.htm


	11. In which Athos considers his friend's feelings.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psalm 121

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't kill me!

_hell, early autumn_

 

Timing was critical.

The light that filtered down through the high iron grate was essential to the climb - his hands and feet knew only part of the way, and the sloping incline at the top was… dangerous. He needed his eyes for it. So: climb in the day.

Yet they could not open the lid in daylight - any attention in that area, from the courtyard where the old man said they must be, might kill them or, worse, put them back. And waiting at the very top, as the cool of evening chilled to night was itself an issue, as it was then that it was opened, the bottle uncorked, that food and a bucket’s worth of water might be thrown down to the animals inside.

Aramis clung to a high perch and waited for the darkening of the day. He held his place easily by now, well-practiced, breathing from the belly and resting his arms by turns. (Perhaps a hunter knew the stillness of it, and the waiting.)

A pained grinding and grating from above. The fall of scraps. Footsteps on stone. He held his place and listened as the sounds of the living up-above faded, then eyed the tilting slope above him. It was a time when one could no longer tell a white thread from a black, wolf-and-lamb time - he could still see the handholds so painfully carved above him, deeper shadows in the stone… Time to move.

He held still for one more breath, resting his forehead against the coolness of the ordered bricks, then squared his shoulders.

“You’ll come back for me?” called the old man from below. “You’ll bring help?”

“You have my word of honour on it.”

 _“Honour,”_ the old man scoffed, “there’s no word in the language more likely to cause stupidity and inconvenience.”

Aramis grinned, sharp and sudden. “Then you’ll just have to trust me, _dominie.”_

It might be death, this climb. It might be life. He swarmed upwards.

 

**

 

_a camp among the fir trees, late autumn_

 

Aramis held up his hands. “As you can see, Captain, I made the climb and slunk out like an unsuccessful thief.” He looked at the little fire, set low in the ground. “After that the wall of the chateau was, _pff,_ a small leap. I ran into the woods, into the shadows, and I ran and I ran until the sun was on my face.”

Athos, a quiet warmth beside him, asked, “What then?”

“Scavenged a bit. Stole a razor and some clothes from a cottage - I still feel guilty about that. But my God, what it was to be clean, such a strange scraped raw sensation that was. Naked in the wind, and the sun… The plan was to get to France, Athos, _quietly,_ and ask Treville for help. I was in no condition to get R- to get the _d-_ to get the old man out on my own and _please believe me,_ Athos, we cannot afford to antagonise Savoy. I’ve seen the Spanish regiments on the other side, just… this has to be quiet.”

“Why Treville and not his own agents?”

“We had no idea if they were still operational, or if I could find them, or if any could still be trusted. Treville, now, he’s a fixed point, and his Regiment is known for tricky, dirty jobs, not so?” Aramis smiled mirthlessly. “I imagine he thought I’d be more convincing with him than another man.

“I don’t know what happened then. I imagine I had another crack on the head at some point.”

Athos nodded. “Porthos saw you knocked unconscious, in the middle of rescuing you from a Spanish raiding party.”

“Whatever were they doing there, in that place, in that time?”

“I had sent them to search for a missing treaty regarding Mantua’s succession troubles. It’s possible that the Spanish who caught you were after the same.”

Aramis huffed a laugh. “the same papers Madame was carrying? How elegant.” He dipped his hand into his clothes and produced the simple wooden rosary, then mimed the string breaking and the beads falling down. “In any case, I woke up tied to a horse in the night, trying to put my head together again.” His fingers picked down, quick and nimble, after the imaginary beads. “I simply… did not realise, when I found a memory of that place, that it might be real. I thought them conjurings of my - of my imaginings, and there was so much else to do, in the daylight world, so much action and life and intrigue and laughter. Much better to put those thoughts to one side and get on with things. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Captain, it wasn’t that bad.”

He could hear Athos breathing.

“I wasn’t lying when I said there was a lot of chess and politics. And talking - we talked our throats dry in the summer months. There was no torture; the only injury to signify was from the initial fall. What is there, really, to fuss about?”

There was a hand on his neck, to the side, placed very lightly so that he could move away if he wanted. Very slowly, Athos moved in and kissed him on the temple.

Aramis sat still with it, enjoying the closeness and the warmth, the soft lips and bristle against his skin. He wished Porthos were here, the big man was an excellent hugger…

He opened his eyes. It was dark out among the fir trees, full night.

“Porthos,” he said slowly. “If Porthos and d’Artagnan were hunting rabbits, they would have returned by now. The hand against his neck tightened, then loosed.

“The boy sees in the dark, remember?” said Athos casually. “Gascons are like that.”

Aramis licked his lips. “Captain,” he said carefully, “exactly how absent have I been tonight, that I missed this?”

“It was also that you trusted me,” Athos said. His hand did not move.

Aramis launched himself across the clearing, trampling right through the low fire so that the dull coals broke and sparked and scattered.

_“Aramis! Down!!”_

 

**

 

_the chateau courtyard_

 

D’Artagnan refrained from whistling as he slipped through the shadows cast in the courtyard. (Whistling was never a good idea. The last time he had whistled while hunting was when he was thirteen, hunting rabbits with his cousin. They’d gone home hungry that night.)

Silent, pad-footed, Porthos the ex-thief followed him, picking their way through the ground they had scouted earlier.

With a prybar padded in cloth, he eased the circular grate up a few inches, then they both held still in the shadows as a trio of servants hurried across the flagstones.

The peace held; the servants moved away.

“Have you wondered what’s down there?” he asked Porthos wryly, in a low voice that would not carry. _“Pwhagh,”_ he added, as the grate came up. “Smells like a sewer.”

“Yeah,” Porthos breathed, unhooking a dark lantern from his belt and easing a coil of rope off his shoulder. “Smells just like a punch in the face. Let’s do this.”

 

**

 

_a camp among the fir trees_

 

 _“Aramis! Down!!”_ Athos snapped, putting all his years of command into his voice.

Aramis the trained soldier dropped, wild-eyed, his legs buckling. Athos seized him by the collar and hauled him until he had the man tucked between his legs and wrapped his arms around him. He could smell the worsted wool of Aramis’ doublet, and gunpowder, and the flowery oil he'd worked into his hair. With a small sigh Aramis relaxed into the hold; his head bowed and hair fell forward, hiding his eyes and baring his neck.

“Are there any hidden soldiers down there? Traps you did not mention?”

Aramis shook his head frantically. He was breathing short and fast in Athos’ arms, like a trapped rabbit.

“Then they will do as well as any other.” Athos tightened his grip around the other man - thin as he was it was not difficult. “They are experienced men. You are _not needed_ in this.”

Aramis twisted like a snake and broke free, into a stumbling run. Athos launched himself after him and wrestled him down to the cold dirt with all his weight over him, prisoning one of Aramis’ arms with his own, wrapping the other about his friend’s neck. “What are you afraid of,” Athos snarled softly, “that they will get caught? Or that they will see what it was like?”

Aramis said nothing, but struggled, reaching this way and that. His breath wheezed frantically, quicker and shallower. Regretfully, Athos tightened the choke and felt his friend writhe under him until, finally, he dropped into silence. Aramis’ free hand opened, and the tiny knife in it rolled into the dirt.

“I’m sorry,” Athos rasped, releasing the hold. “But you were never going back there.” Breathing harshly himself, he rolled Aramis onto his back and pulled him back into the camp, straightening his limbs and wrapping him in a blanket.

Then, as agreed, he kept watch again.

And his breath caught.

At the distant chateau, cannons were firing.

 

**

 

Psalm 121 _(A song of the stairs) I lift up mine eyes unto the hills; from whence cometh my help?... The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forth, and forever._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There'll be a brief hiatus while I catch my breath (possibly a couple of related one-shots), then I'll move into "Journey's End".
> 
> (Please, please don't kill me.)
> 
> // _“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Captain, it wasn’t that bad.”_ \- lest readers think I’m harping on with this theme of self-effacement - I’ve read a fair few stories of trauma where people routinely minimise their own distress. “Sure, I’m literally in hospital because I tried to kill myself but I wouldn’t call myself _depressed,_ that would be putting on airs.” “Me? Suffering from PTSD? Nah. Other people are suffering; I’m just weak.” I mean, I might still be harping on, but it’s harping for a reason. And, I’m just going to ask people to be kind to _themselves,_ as well as others. If someone you loved were going through what you are, would you want to help them?
> 
> // _then they both held still in the shadows as a trio of servants hurried across_ \- I am afflicted with sudden nostalgia for playing Thief.


End file.
